The first thirty minutes were spectacular. Derivative, terribly derivative, but so well executed even I was about to set aside the cynicism. I went to bathroom and came back and our heroes were fighting CGI squid monsters. It was like I came back into a different movie, and it never recovered. The pacing became incredibly uneven, the plotting preposterous and contrived, the "magic" moments increasingly few and far between.

The only good thing I can say about the movie is that I didn't totally hate Rey or Darth Doofus.

The most offensive thing for me was the absurdity of the pacing toward the end. And it ends with that most obnoxious of action movie cliches -- a 100lb girl physically overpowering an able-bodied adult man. I suppose you could say the force let her do it, but give me a break. She went from "what's that?" to beating up the guy who stops lasers with his mind in -- a couple hours? The climax of the movie should have been her surprising him for a moment and getting away, not beating the shit out of him.

And the movie was so ridiculously politically correct, I expect that Finn is going to come back in the next one as the first disabled Star Wars character. Maybe he'll come out as gay, too.

ETA: and a space map--with a path? Was it for a scavenger hunt or something? And no one thought to look at R2D2 while he'd been sitting there in the corner turned off for years? Or turn the shields back on for half an hour after the good guys had left the controls? Or send more than three people -- an old guy, a wounded monster, and some turncoat you've just met? Ugh. I could go on and on.

The first thirty minutes were spectacular. Derivative, terribly derivative, but so well executed even I was about to set aside the cynicism. I went to bathroom and came back and our heroes were fighting CGI squid monsters. It was like I came back into a different movie, and it never recovered. The pacing became incredibly uneven, the plotting preposterous and contrived, the "magic" moments increasingly few and far between.

The only good thing I can say about the movie is that I didn't totally hate Rey or Darth Doofus.

The most offensive thing for me was the absurdity of the pacing toward the end. And it ends with that most obnoxious of action movie cliches -- a 100lb girl physically overpowering an able-bodied adult man. I suppose you could say the force let her do it, but give me a break. She went from "what's that?" to beating up the guy who stops lasers with his mind in -- a couple hours? The climax of the movie should have been her surprising him for a moment and getting away, not beating the shit out of him.

And the movie was so ridiculously politically correct, I expect that Finn is going to come back in the next one as the first disabled Star Wars character. Maybe he'll come out as gay, too.

ETA: and a space map--with a path? Was it for a scavenger hunt or something? And no one thought to look at R2D2 while he'd been sitting there in the corner turned off for years? Or turn the shields back on for half an hour after the good guys had left the controls? Or send more than three people -- an old guy, a wounded monster, and some turncoat you've just met? Ugh. I could go on and on.

She will be piggy-backing Luke while she force leaps and jumps for the next movie, I can't wait for that. Btw, what happened to the Rebel Alliance, I totally missed some dialogue because they're all "The Resistance". Was the Alliance all on Corusant?

Who knows? You sure could complain that the movie had even less setup than the originals as to politics, geography, etc. Like the prequels inverted. My impression (and I admit it was derived from things I read about the setup of the movie and not the movie itself) was that the "Resistance" and the "New Order" were marginalized fanatics who were fighting each other when everyone else had had enough. But if that's the case how could any organized polity anywhere allow those crazies to build another death star? Surely after it blew up the first planet (or planets, or whatever), anyone with the means to attack it would. Apparently the entire galaxy can only muster about as many fighters as happened to be at the rebel base in the first movie.

And it was really suspenseful waiting to see if it would shoot the laser at the secret resistance base! If Leia didn't get off that planet in the years it would take for the laser to travel across the depths of space to hit their base, she'd be dead!

For me Kylo Ren´s dwindling powers make sense. He´s young, impetuous, still struggling with going completely to the dark side. He can go from stopping a laser blast, force choking someone towards him and getting info out of someone using the force (which I don´t remember being done before) to at the end having a hard time grabbing luke´s light saber.

What I liked most about the movie was the unrelenting action... it almost never stopped. New characters are great, some underwhelming (like captain phasma) and it all looks beautiful. Strucutrally it was pretty much like ANH, which I don´t hate but sort of wished that they do their own thing in ep 8 and 9. It was a nice nod to fans of the originals, though. I really enjoyed, but I´m going again with a cooler head to get a better grasp of everything.

Not really spoiling anything but don't be late or get up to use the restroom when the "turn your cell phones off" comes up. There are no other movie previews. The movie just starts.

Not where I watched it.

Although, I fucking love it when all of us fans roared in cheering and clapping when "LucasFilm Ltd" and "STAR WARS" popped up. And huge cheering when we saw the Falcon, Han and Chewie in their first appearances. This is what makes Star Wars fanbase/movie atmosphere completely owning LOTR, Hunger Games, or even Star Trek movies.

For me Kylo Ren´s dwindling powers make sense. He´s young, impetuous, still struggling with going completely to the dark side. He can go from stopping a laser blast, force choking someone towards him and getting info out of someone using the force (which I don´t remember being done before) to at the end having a hard time grabbing luke´s light saber.

What I liked most about the movie was the unrelenting action... it almost never stopped. New characters are great, some underwhelming (like captain phasma) and it all looks beautiful. Strucutrally it was pretty much like ANH, which I don´t hate but sort of wished that they do their own thing in ep 8 and 9. It was a nice nod to fans of the originals, though. I really enjoyed, but I´m going again with a cooler head to get a better grasp of everything.

Although, I fucking love it when all of us fans roared in cheering and clapping when "LucasFilm Ltd" and "STAR WARS" popped up. And huge cheering when we saw the Falcon, Han and Chewie in their first appearances. This is what makes Star Wars fanbase/movie atmosphere completely owning LOTR, Hunger Games, or even Star Trek movies.

That's strange that mine didn't have any previews then.

I'm working out of our LA office this week and they rented out 2 screens at the theater near the Staples Center. There wasn't much cheering but all the girls around me did the "awwww" thing when Leia and Han appeared together.